


she's holding a secret she'll never tell

by voodoochild



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: Female Friendship, Gen, POV Female Character, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-28 16:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/309838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of 2.12, the Rothsteins pay a visit to Atlantic City.</p>
            </blockquote>





	she's holding a secret she'll never tell

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Boardwalk Empire Comment Ficathon](http://cloudytea.livejournal.com/139537.html). Title and prompt from Vienna Teng's "Love Turns 40".

She accompanies Arnold to a funeral in Atlantic City.

He doesn't ask this of her often, preferring to keep her separate from the rest of his business. She can oversee the track at Saratoga or check the take from the Brook, but when it comes to bloodshed and vendetta, he prefers her hands clean.

Something had been different about this one. There had been telephone calls from Atlantic City, Philadelphia, and Chicago, names she knew (Thompson, Torrio, Gordon, the boys) and names she didn't (Darmody, Horvitz, Capone). There had been whispers from the boys, called to the house looking stone-faced when Arnold was looking and unsettled when he wasn't.

Two nights ago, he'd pulled her into his arms and asked: _Sweet, take a trip with me?_

(She'd laughed and suggested Paris before he told her the reason he'd asked.)

And so she is here in a grand house by the sea, to remember a man she's never met. Arnold tells her his name was James Darmody, and he'd only been 24 years old. A soldier and a husband and a father (and the chubby-cheeked solemn little boy hiding in the corner of a parlor just breaks her heart), but one thing no one speaks of is how he died.

She isn't stupid. The gunman's probably in one of these rooms, one of the men in their sharp suits and sober expressions she'd shaken hands with as she and Arnold came in.

Business calls, as it always does, even during times like these, and Arnold leaves her to drink tea in a room filled with hunting trophies. She doesn't envy him. She wanders the house, making small talk here and there.

No, she hadn't met the young man.

Yes, New York is beautiful, Mrs. Thompson. You're welcome to visit any time.

She's so very sorry, Mr. Harrow. Were you very close to James?

It's after the tin soldier hurries off to find the young boy that Carolyn comes upon a small bedroom. It's sparse, the sort of place only a man would inhabit, and there is a red-haired woman around her own age sitting on the bed. The woman is beautiful, dressed impeccably in jet-black and rouge; a necklace of some type in her hands.

The name comes to her suddenly - Gillian Darmody, the deceased's mother. The one who raised her hand for Arnold to kiss as if it were her due. The raised tensions when confronted with Arnold's boys (and there's no mistaking the way Charlie Luciano looks at women he's bedded), and the clipped, cold tones that speak of a loneliness Carolyn knows well.

"Mrs. Rothstein, I apologise-"

Carolyn sits down, takes Gillian's hand. "Don't. I can't even begin to imagine what you're going through. I don't think I could have gotten out of bed."

Gillian breaks at that, a tear coursing down her cheek. "I don't know what I'll do without him."

There's nothing one can say to a grieving mother, and Carolyn doesn't even have the personal connection to tell Gillian she'll miss James too. She simply holds the other woman's hand, as the sea crashes outside.


End file.
